


A Sticky Situation

by TetrodotoxinB



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Danny being the cool dad, Gen, Mild panic, don't worry it resolves quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Danny takes Charlie to the Children's Museum, but tight spaces are still tight spaces, regardless of whether or not they're "fun" or populated with giggling children.





	A Sticky Situation

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just my dumb ass at the Children's Museum chasing my approximately 9 billion offspring through a tape maze and discovering that I, in fact, have claustrophobia. I hope that my very mild suffering can bring us all entertainment.

Normally, Danny avoids the children’s museum because of the cost of admission, but it’s dollar day. Charlie has been asking to go for ages so here they are. 

For the most part, Danny isn’t really needed. Charlie runs and bounces in the kids’ play areas, checking out display after display, his attention too scattered to really be playing with Danny for more than a moment or two at a time. Danny is content to watch and relish in the promise of an afternoon nap for Charlie. 

But after they leave the rainforest room, Charlie bolts towards the room with the seasonal exhibits. Danny follows as Charlie darts between other kids and parents. By the time he clears the doors to the exhibit, Charlie has his shoes off and has dived into the maze of tunnels. Danny reads a sign above the translucent golgi-body-looking labyrinth that explains that the entire thing is made of packing tape. Danny is impressed, though admittedly confused as to why that’s something they felt the need to do.

“Come on, Danno. Come play!” Charlie shouts, poking his head out of one of the openings.

There’s at least one other dad in the tape-apparatus and the sign clearly says, “All ages welcome.” 

“Coming!” Danny calls, and he toes off his shoes.

Next thing he knows he’s crawling behind Charlie deeper into the tubes. Charlie squeals as he jumps and slides out one of the many exits. Danny pretend-chases him around the floor and back up into the weird playspace several times. Charlie is squealing, and several other kids whose parents aren’t about to be caught up in the tape-maze, have joined their game. Danny doesn’t mind. At work, he rarely gets to interact with kids who aren’t having the literal worst days of their lives. Hearing them laugh is a nice change of pace. 

“Over here, Danno!” Charlie calls and darts off down another tube that somehow they haven’t previously explored.

The gaggle of kids he’s been chasing along with Charlie takes off down the tube and Danny’s hot on their heels. Or rather, he is until he gets well and thoroughly into the tube. Then it all goes pear shaped.

This tube is small, _really_ small. It’s so small in fact, that he can’t crawl on his hands and knees, not that his knee wants him to crawl on it anymore than he already has. 

There’s a group of kids behind him and Danny knows he has to go forward but there’s _no space_. And suddenly all the laughter that was helping to ease the pain of a really shitty week at work, is deafening. The kids sound like they’re all around him, and in a sense they are. 

The tape walls press against his sides and his front as he finally gives in and lies down on his belly, too large to do anything else. Laid out like that, his only field of vision is the kid in front of him and the closed in walls of tape, and suddenly Danny’s breath comes a little shallow. 

There’s no way to convince all the kids behind him to go back and besides, it would probably be harder to move backwards at this point than it would be to just keep going. But it doesn’t matter to Danny’s anxiety-brain what makes sense, because his entire amygdala is screaming at him to _go back_. 

Unable to use his legs, Danny uses his hands to reach forward and pull himself along the inside of the tunnel. It feels impossible; there’s no way he can possibly pull himself through this fucking death trap like this. He’s not strong enough and he’s just getting more stuck. The fact that there’s at least six inches of space above him to work with and he’s moving along with the kids ahead of him doesn’t matter to his sense of impending doom. 

This was clearly a stupid decision. None of the other parents are fucking around inside these crudely designed play tunnels made from what was probably an entire pallet’s worth of packing tape. No, they’re sitting on chairs or leaning against walls, chatting amiably and checking their phones. Like normal people. But Danny, in his endeavor to make up for lost time with Charlie since Rachel saw fit to rob him of the first few years of his son’s life, decided to be the Fun Dad. And now he’s the Fun Dad about to get his fat ass wedged in a children’s play structure.

As he scoots forward bit by bit, the self-deprecation gives way to concern and then anxiety. The tube is _really_ small, and he laughs — probably sounding a little off kilter to the poor kids trapped in this tunnel with him — wondering hysterically if they’ll have to cut him out. He’d be That Dad, the guy from 5-0 that got stuck in a fucking packing tape tunnel like an idiot. Definitely not the Fun Dad. Steve would never let him hear the end of it. Neither would Rachel, or Charlie, or Grace.

Danny’s been doing his best to keep his panic under wraps because he knows if he goes to pieces it will all end in safety shears. Still, he’s quickly coming undone. Just as he thinks he can’t make this work, that maybe the ribbing would be worth if someone would just get him the _fuck out_ , the kid in front of him suddenly slides down and out the end of the tube.

Danny uses every last ounce of restraint and consideration as he waits until the kid clears the way. Then he hurtles himself face first out of the tube, sprawling out on the crash pad at the bottom like some sort of newborn foal flopping indelicately to the ground as it greets the world. 

Some of the other parents are looking on in amusement which is probably fair — the other Fun Dad is long since gone, and with good reason — but Danny doesn’t care. He clamors out of the way of the children behind him and then collapses against the wall where he can rest and hopefully get his shit together. 

“Danno, chase me!!” Charlie shouts from the entrance to one of the tunnels.

Danny flaps his hand in the general direction of Charlie. “You go on. I’m just gonna catch my breath.”

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long before the panic of being stuck in the packing tape birth canal fades. Of course, it’s also not long until Charlie is done with the whole weird tape tube structure and begins demanding his third snack in as many hours. 

As they make their way out of the museum, Danny decides that he can be the Fun Dad by taking Charlie to get shave ice at Kamekona’s place, rather than crawling through unpleasantly tight spaces. Charlie won’t care either way and there’s no chance of Danny losing his sanity or dignity to the souped-up version of a pre-teen’s duct tape wallet. 

It’s a win-win.


End file.
